PULP NONFICTION -- A celebration of the pioneers of true crime...

Life, Crimes and Confession of Bridget Durgan

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Episode 141 conveys the confession of an Irish immigrant, young but hardened by life, who after getting fired from her housekeeping job, resolves to murder her mistress. Once she gets the idea in her head, she can’t let it go. Adapted from a sensational pamphlet published in 1867, the first act is purported to be a confession penned by the culprit’s own hands, and the second part... well, let’s just say it’s not gonna end well for Bridget Durgan.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams ... Additional music by Chuck Wiggins...

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Media management by Sean R. Jones...

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Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun...

A Collection Of True Crime Short Stories___

The Bigamist And Her Murderous Husband

The Sweetwater Double Homicide

First up is the sordid tale of a love octangle or some such, when the suspiciously widowed husband of a girl married five times without a divorce gets fed up with the legal harassment from his wife’s elderly suitor--yeah, that’s not gonna end well.

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The Storybook Taxi Bandit

Murder At 8:13

The Storybook Taxi Bandit

This action-packed tale begins with a fidgety stranger walking into an Indiana cafe, soon followed by an interstate manhunt.

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Stalking The Tiger Girl

The Bandit Queen of 1927

And our finale “Stalking The Tiger Girl,” tells of a Los Angeles detective’s pursuit of a sassy, auburn-haired hold-up artist, who suddenly found repentance--after her arrest.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Additional music by audionautix.com and from public domain piano rolls converted to midi.

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/magazine006

AN EYE FOR AN EYE -- A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty...

Six Dead At Erland’s Point

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Episode 139 is the gruesome story of a home invasion, circa 1934, a case that seemed so random that it took over a year to crack one of the most brutal mass murders witnessed by the Pacific Northwest. The small-town police are at first presented as in over their heads, but they remained dogged in their pursuit, and justice will be served. Eventually.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1934bremerton

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Complicated Death of Starr Faithfull

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Episode 138 is the case that inspired the John O’Hara novel and Elizabeth Taylor film “BUtterfield 8,” the sad, sordid tale of a beautiful girl with an evocative name and a traumatic past that put her on a road to ruin. The finding of her body led to a probe deep into the social fabric of three cities on two continents.

The telling of the story isn’t especially graphic, but it does go to dark, dark places.

Just so you know.

Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1931faithfull

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

Who Killed The Widow Short?

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Episode 137 is the quirky story of the death of a beloved widow in Topeka, Kansas. She was old and in ill health, and no one suspected any foul play until her caretaker--allegedly her late husband’s nephew--suddenly confessed to the crime, but then the autopsy told another story entirely. Was Fred Fanning covering for someone? Or did someone have undue influence over his mind, if he had one?

I’m True Crime Historian Richard O Jones and I give you:

Fred Fanning’s False Confession

Who Killed The Widow Short?

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Playlist

Here are some other True Crime Historian episodes about poisoners and/or confessions:

The Mystery of My Husband’s Body In My Trunk

The Death Cell Confession Of Anna Marie Hahn

The Murderous Mania Of Jolly Jane, Part I

The Murderous Mania Of Jolly Jane, Part II

The Cyanide Widow

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Herrin Coal Mine Massacre

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Episode 136 comes by way of a request from Herrin, Illinois, where a True Crime Historian listener Chris Baines wanted to know more about some hometown dark history, about the time a local mining company imported 50 guys from Chicago to bust a strike, 25 men to ship the coal that had been dug, and 25 men to stand guard with rifles and a machine gun to make sure the work got done. Yeah. That’s not gonna end well.

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Playlist

If you liked this episode, here are a few others about social unrest and/or rivalries gone too far.

Revenge of the Anarchists (Part 1: Crime)

Revenge of the Anarchist (Part 2: Punishment)

A Deadly Family Feud

Mystery at the American Saloon

The Demented Dynamiter of Bath

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1922herrin

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels, and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Examination Room Murder

Major Green Collared By The Collar

For Episode 135 we’ve put together a double-header expanding on the theme of the past two episodes. Both of these cases were mentioned in “The Good Friday Beekman Place Bathtub Murder” and Tears of the Weeping Willow.” First is the story of how an unfortunate relationship brought tragedy upon tragedy to a physician’s family, and then we’ll explore the case of a housewife caught unaware by a burglar carrying a deadly weapon.

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Recommended Episodes:

The East Orange Bathtub Murder

The Chinatown Trunk Murder

The Wicked Working Girl of Fall River

The Belle in the Belfry

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Violin Concerto in E minor #15 by Felix Draeseke, performed by Julia Röntz - Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach, courtesy musopen.org

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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1937marycase

YESTERDAY’S NEWS --

Tales of classic scandals, scoundrels and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism...

The Trial Of Vera Stretz

The next two episodes of True Crime Historian will be a pair of murders, of sorts, as they both took place within a swank New York City block of each other within months of each other. First up, Episode 133 is the story of a scholarly young artist whose married fiance tries to take things too far.

This story is performed by True Crime Historian producer Emily Simer Braun, reprising the role of Alice Cogan, ace reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, whose wise-cracking reporting we first heard in episode 16, “Momsies Deadly Love.”

Theme Music by Dave Sams

String Quartet no. 6 in Fm, Op. 80 by Felix Mendelssohn performed by the Musopen String Quartet

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1936stretz

A Pair Of Chilling Confessions --“The Confession of ‘Texas Jim’ Baker” ...

“The Vampire of Dusseldorf”

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The first half of episode 132 is a first person account of the crimes of James “Texas Jim” Baker, who is said to have killed, usually by poison, nine men around the world. His gleeful rendering of his story was published after his capture in 1930. The second half is culled from a pair of Sunday magazine articles that includes copious quotes from the sworn confession of the man dubbed “The Vampire of Dusseldorf” as told in court.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata performed by Paul Pitman, courtesy musopen.org

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/2017magazine05

AN EYE FOR AN EYE --A special edition of Yesterday’s News exploring the criminal justice system at its most extreme: Inflicting the Death Penalty...

The Botched Execution of Eva Dugan

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Episode 131 concerns the murky relationship between the mysterious hired wife, a Tuscon rancher, and a young man who came to stay. It’s also about the dogged chase for the fugitive conducted by a determined sheriff, but the scene that strikes me most takes place in the office of a prison warden when they confront the suspected murderer with an unsettling relic of her crime.

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Theme Music by Dave Sams

Media management by Sean R. Jones

Production assistance by Emily Simer Braun

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bit.ly/1927mathis